Douglas Paulson and Christopher Robbins offer a creative challenge.
The Art Assignment visits Chicago-based artist Deb Sokolow.
Toyin Odutola challenges you to create a GIF!
The Art Assignment visits artist David Brooks in his Brooklyn studio.
Jace Clayton challenges you to explore the world in a new way.
Robyn O'Neil challenges you to draw a psychological landscape.
Take the "What, How, Where!" challenge at www.whathowandwhere.com
This week Sarah breaks down why The Art Assignment sign-off cannot be "Please Don't Break the Law," and discusses artists Ai Weiwei and Pussy Riot who have broken the law for good reasons. What should our sign off be?
We visit artist Kate Gilmore in her Brooklyn studio for a very mobile assignment.
We go to The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and give you some pointers on how to visit an art museum. Seems easy enough, but there are ways to maximize your experience.
We're challenged to see what we find when we turn OFF our screens.
We visit Fritz Haeg in Los Angeles and receive the assignment to make a rag rug!
In which we talk about ways to find out about contemporary art.
We visit the Kansas City shop of designer Peggy Noland and talk to her about influence.
At VidCon 2014, we hit up some of our favorite vloggers and hosts and asked them to do an Art Assignment.
We meet Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich and receive the assignment to make an imprint. !
Artist Nina Katchadourian takes us on her journey of sorting an old book collection.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Photo a Friend' assignment. S1 Ep33 | 7m 59s Share this video: Share this video on FacebookShare this video on Twitter Video thumbnail: The Art Assignment Photo a Friend - Tanja Hollander Photo a Friend - Tanja Hollander S1 Ep32 | 7m 53s Video thumbnail: The Art Assignment Find Your Band - Bang on A Can Find Your Band - Bang on A Can S1 Ep31 | 11m 32s
We meet up with photographer Tanja Hollander on her epic journey around the world.
We discuss the conventions of art critique.
Artist Oliver Blank explores our sense of time and place through public installations.
Art and Architecture Conservator Richard McCoy joins us to discuss when it's appropriate to touch art, when it's not, and why.
Jan Tichy gives us the assignment to create an Expanded Moment.
Laurel Nakadate makes art by connecting with strangers, and she wants you to do this, too! She gives us the challenge of finding little known family members and making their photographic portrait.
We ask what the title "curator" really means, both traditionally and as it is used today.
Illustrator and artist Christoph Niemann joins PBS Digital Studios' The Art Assignment to give out the challenge of finding the emotion in furniture.
Performance artist Ryan McNamara joins PBS Digital Studio's The Art Assignment to challenge you to play a game of MOVEMENT TELEPHONE.
The Art Assignment visits artist collective Dignicraft during their residency at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Omar Foglio, José Luis Figueroa, and Paola Rodriguez give us the assignment to facilitate an Encounter / Encuentro.
We visited New Orleans for the Prospect.3 exhibition and saw some fantastic art by Carrie Mae Weems, Camille Henrot, Shigeru Ban, Kerry James Marshall, and Tavares Strachan.
We’re talking about your responses to Tameka Norris’s assignment to Become Someone Else and how both internal and external change are a constant and inevitable reality in our lives. Thanks for all the wonderful submissions!
The Art Assignment furthers their exploration of New Orleans to visit artist Bob Snead. He's the Executive Director of Press Street, an organization that promotes art and literature in the community through events, publications and arts education. Snead embraces the collaborative nature of art-making and gives us the assignment to produce an ASSEMBLY LINE.
The Art Assignment continues its journey through New Orleans with Brandan "BMike" Odums, the mastermind behind "ExhibitBE", a collaborative street art exhibition that transformed an unoccupied apartment building and gave it new life. Now he's asking YOU to do something similar.
This week we try our hand at one of those top 10 lists we keep seeing on the Interwebs these days. Specifically, we're going to talk about ten ideas that led to the idea of this very show!
Indianapolis-based artist Brian McCutcheon asks you to Customize It!
Ryan Lott, also known as Son Lux, is a musician and composer who works in collaboration.
Oliver Blank gives an update on some of the best responses to his challenge
Today we visit artist Allison Smith in her Oakland, California studio. Her work focuses on historical reenactment and how the past influences the present -- and now she wants to know what YOU are fighting for.
This week's assignment comes from Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan, who cofounded THE THING Quarterly, a publication that distributes everyday objects conceived of by different artists. They ask you to consider the meaning of physical objects in an increasingly digital world and Make a Thing.
What's the deal with Warhol, and is he worth your time and consideration?
We come to you this week from San Francisco's Exploratorium, where we met with artist-in-residence Zarouhie Abdalian. For her assignment, she wants you to focus on boundaries and the relationships between the spaces they separate.
This week we sit down with artist Desirée Holman to talk about her current project, Sophont, which explores ideas of science fiction, aliens, new-age ideology, mysticism, and tech culture. Her assignment asks you to become a science fiction character by creating and wearing some kind of psionics hardware that enhances your character's abilities.
Rectangles after rectangles after rectangles.
This week's assignment comes to you from Chicago based artist Geof Oppenheimer. Geof's work reflects personal experience and the social and political atmosphere they were created in, and he wants you to make an object that does the same.
You probably made rubbings in elementary school, but Kim Beck views rubbings as field recordings. She wants you to take a snapshot of a particular place by making a rubbing of the ground you're standing on.
So many of you came out to make a rug with us at VidCon and we couldn't be more thrilled with how it turned out. Thanks so much to all who participated, and especially those who were kind enough to share their thoughts about the experience!
This week we meet with Jon Rubin, a Pittsburgh based artist whose practice often focuses on cultural exchange, pushing us to imagine other people and their lives more complexly. For his assignment, he asks you to do the same by bridging the gap between you and your neighbor.
So you look at a work of art and think to yourself, I could have done that. And maybe you really could have, but the issue here is more complex than that -- why didn't you? Why did the artist? And why does it have an audience?
This week we visit Lenka Clayton, another Pittsburgh based artist whose work finds meaning in ordinary, everyday objects. For her assignment, she asks you to partner with someone and recreate a lost childhood object, using their memory of the object and the materials you have around you.
We’re talking about your responses to Tameka Norris’s assignment to Become Someone Else and how both internal and external change are a constant and inevitable reality in our lives.
This week we’re at Mildred’s Lane, a 96-acre site in rural Pennsylvania founded by J. Morgan Puett. Mildred’s Lane is an experiment in living - it's a space where Morgan and her friends collaborate on projects, practice creative domestication, and pay closer attention to every aspect of daily life.
We continue our stay at Mildred's Lane and talk to it's Director and Ambassador of Entanglement J. Morgan Puett about it's origins, it's goals and how her installation art practice influences her vision for the site.
multiple mediums, but much of her work centers around pattern and color. Her assignment asks you to recall an activity you may have done in kindergarten and explore it’s potential as a design project.
Today we meet with artist and musician Nathaniel Russell. Nat's work plays with the divide between real and imagined, making posters and flyers for events that may or may not exist. His assignment asks you to make a fake flyer and share it with the world too.
We spent a week in Grand Rapids absorbing everything that was ArtPrize 2015, the world’s largest art competition. Here’s a taste of what we found.
We went to ArtPrize and met up with Minneapolis based artists Carolina Borja and Amy Toscani. Their exhibit this year invited the audience to destroy the large-scale handmade piñatas that they had spent hours constructing. And now it’s your turn to make and break.
We continue our exploration of ArtPrize and meet with Brooklyn-based artist Diana Shpungin. Diana's work and her assignment for you are both based on empathy -- it's a feeling we usually have for other people, but Diana wants you to direct your empathy towards objects instead.
This week we're talking about a group of supremely awesome and unapologetic artists who take risks, question art world practices, and also happen to be women. These are truly inspirational artists who make a wide range of work, and today we're going to single out and celebrate five of them.
This week we meet with artist and designer Jonathan Nesci at the First Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana. Jonathan uses systems of design to experiment with new materials and processes, and his assignment for you invites you to do the same by combining a set of particular shapes into different variations.
Alec Soth is a photographer who works on large-scale projects that play with the boundaries between his roles as a fine art photographer and photojournalist. This week, he asks you to take on the role of a newspaper photographer and report on a story from a different perspective.
In which we explore a few of Minnesota's many fantastic art offerings. Let's take a trip through the Twin Cities!
This week’s assignment comes from artist Paula McCartney, whose work explores the boundaries between the natural and unnatural. Her assignment asks you to reexamine what those terms even mean by constructing an image of the so-called natural world.
Kanye West was given an honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May of 2015, and more than a couple of people questioned it. But why? Why shouldn't Kanye be taken seriously in the world of art? Here's our case for Kanye as an artist.
David Rathman’s paintings pair atmospheric landscapes with carefully selected phrases, playing with the relationship between text and image. This week, he created a painting for you to caption.
In which we explore Washington, DC's vast and diverse collection of landmarks, museums, and galleries - ranging from institutions like the Hirshhorn to the art-worthy metro system. Let's take a trip through Washington, DC.
This week we meet D.C. based artist Molly Springfield. Molly's graphite drawings transform texts into images, and her assignment for you asks you to consider how repeating a process can turn a copy into an original.
What is public art? Who funds it, owns it, and shapes it? Who does it serve? And why is it important? We try to answer some of these questions by looking at an example of public art that never came to be - Fred Wilson’s E Pluribus Unum.
Yoko Ono was an established artist before most of the world heard of her in 1968, and she continues to make groundbreaking work to this day. Who is Yoko Ono? What is her work? And why should you take her seriously? This is the case for Yoko Ono.
This week we visit Assaf Evron in Chicago to consider how photography can help us see the familiar places we visit everyday differently.
In which we explore our neighboring city of Chicago, film with two local artists, and see more art in one day than is probably advisable.
You've probably seen a few cubes sitting in an art gallery and questioned why they were there. How could cubes be important? How did we get here? This is the case for Minimalism.
This week we meet with Maria Gaspar, an artist deeply invested in her community on the west side of Chicago. For her assignment, she asks YOU to engage with invisible spaces in YOUR community.
Today we're going to continue our discussion of public art, this time focusing on murals. We've invited Richard McCoy back to the studio to share with us what exactly murals are, where they came from, and how they can contribute to the betterment of the community.
In which we explore the great city of Richmond, Virginia, and think about its history as well as its present.
Today we talk to textile artist Sonya Clark, who applies the techniques of textile work to represent her personal and cultural history. Her assignment draws on her insightful approach to histories and asks you to represent yours.
Our first video on fierce women artists didn't even begin to cover the volume of interesting and boundary-pushing work made by women, so we had to make another. This week we talk about the incredible Artemisia Gentileschi, Mona Hatoum, Frida Kahlo, Hannah Höch, and Yayoi Kusama.
This week we gathered some friends and challenged ourselves to an art assignment marathon - how many assignments can we complete in a day?
This week we meet with Hope Ginsburg, an artist who often works outside of a traditional studio. Her assignment asks you to conjure your own studio and imagine your ideal space for learning, thinking, and making.
Artists have been taking selfies since the dawn of photography. Cameras allowed people to capture their own image in a way that had never been possible in all of human history, and today most of us carry these magical devices in our pockets, taking self portraits everywhere we go.
In which we explore sunny Los Angeles and take in its enormous range of art offerings, from the eclectic campus at LACMA to an incredible exhibit at Hauser Wirth & Schimmel. It's all worth the drive.
Today we’re talking with Jesse Sugarmann about the way car consumerism, and the aesthetic choices behind it, has been a part of your life and your families.
On this international art trip, we travel to Tijuana to meet with Ghana Think Tank and Torolab, explore the city, and visit artist Hugo Crosthwaite's studio.
This week we we head to Tijuana, Mexico to talk with John Ewing, Carmen Montoya, and Christopher Robbins of Ghana Think Tank, who are working on a project to encourage communication at the U.S-Mexico border.
For much of human history, people made art by trying to represent the world as it appeared around them. Until about 100 years ago, when a bunch of artists stopped trying to do that. It was shocking then and it still upsets and confounds today.
This week we share some of your excellent responses to two assignments -- Geof Oppenheimer's Embarrassing Object and Diana Shpungin's Object Empathy.
This week we come to you from Rosarito, Mexico AND Chicago, IL to bring you an assignment from Hugo Crosthwaite. Hugo asks you to create a collaborative drawing by playing the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse.
We interview the remarkable Vanessa Hill, creator of BrainCraft, a production of PBS Digital Studios, which explores psychology, neuroscience & why we act the way we do. And we challenge Vanessa to respond to our recent art assignment Conjure a Studio offered by Hope Ginsburg:
Dubious of performance art? Break into a cold sweat when you realize it’s about to begin? There’s a reason. Here we present you with a brief history of performance art and attempt to sway you to its potential charms. Let us know if you buy it.
This week we meet Pablo Helguera, an artist, museum educator, and writer, at the Indianapolis stop of his Spanish language bookstore Librería Donceles. His assignment challenges you to give old books new lives through combinatory play. Here's what he means:
Ai Weiwei has been called an iconoclast, a radical, a voice for the voiceless, and was once named the most powerful artist in the world. Who is Ai Weiwei? And why is he considered one of the most renowned artists of our time?
If you were a shape, what shape would you be? This week we meet with Tschabalala Self, whose work explores ideas surrounding the black female body, and her assignment asks you to consider your own body as a symbol too. Here are your instructions:
This week Mike Rugnetta joins us to share five of his favorite works of art. Thanks, Mike!
New York City offers way too many art-viewing opportunities for us to cover in a single art trip video, so this time we decided to focus on the abundant public art around the city.
The Guerrilla Girls are asking, nay demanding, that we complain! But we must do so in ways unique and memorable. We met up with them in London at Tate Modern's new Tate Exchange space, where the Guerrilla Girls were in residence and operating a Complaints Department. Your instructions:
We follow the Guerrilla Girls as they visit Frieze Art Fair in London to share their new campaign with collectors and gallerists. This is what went down.
For our second international art trip, we travel to London during Frieze Art Fair. We saw a lot of art! Almost too much. (Definitely too much.)
We drop in on London-based artist Peter Liversidge, who gives us proposals in the place of assignments. Do one or do all three and show us your good work!
This week we explore some of the most powerful artworks ever made, making the case for political art one work at a time. Pablo Picasso's Guernica, Kathe Kollwitz's prints, Kazimir Malevich's Black Square, Iri and Toshi Maruki's Hiroshima Panels, and Martha Rosler's House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home photomontages. What do you think of as political art?
This week we speak to collaborating artists Mariam Ghani and Erin Ellen Kelly at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and learn about their approach to learning about and working with landscapes.
The Guerrilla Girls are asking, nay demanding, that we complain! But we must do so in ways unique and memorable. We met up with them in London at Tate Modern's new Tate Exchange space, where the We meet up with artist Jamal Cyrus in his hometown of Houston, Texas, where we broach the topic of "postmodernism" and are challenged to summon an impossible sound.
We take an art pilgrimage to Houston, Texas, and visit the likes of the Rothko Chapel, Jam
We introduce you to the talented and amazing JooYoung Choi, who shares tales of her fictional realm The Cosmic Womb and beckons us to create our own IMAGINARY FRIEND.
We figured it was time to come back home and try being tourists in our own town.
What is white? What is any color? Philadelphia-based abstract painter Odili Donald Odita talks with us about his work and offers us an assignment about color.
"Surrealism" has become shorthand for the bizarre, the irrational, the hallucinatory. But what IS it? Or what WAS it? Today we delve into the history of Surrealism, as it formed in post-World War I Europe and as it has infiltrated our wider culture up to today. Here's our case for what Surrealism is, and why you should care about it.
She's probably the most famous artwork of all time, but what do you know about her? It's time to better know the Mona Lisa.
Exploring the intersection of art and food, we prepare two dishes from the 1930s devised by the pasta-hating Italian Futurists. BEHOLD: 1) MEAT SCULPTURE and 2) LIKE A CLOUD.
Sampling, appropriating, borrowing, stealing. Whatever you want to call it, artists have been copying since time immemorial. We look into the history of the practice, and share our theories of why it is done, and what it can offer us.
It's an omnipresent image that has inspired music, tattoos, and even an emoji on your phone. But Hokusai's Great Wave is a woodblock print that was made to be reproduced. What's its story? Let's better know the Great Wave.
Comedian and writer April Richardson shares with us five of her favorite works: 1) Billy Bragg's 1988 album “Workers Playtime” 2) Any zine made by Molly Kalkstein 3) Robert C. Wiles' 1947 photograph The Most Beautiful Suicide 4) One particular scene from the 1988 John Waters' movie Hairspray 5) Siouxsie Sioux's face!
The epicenter of the art world is in Marfa, Texas? We visit this small town where Minimalist artist Donald Judd settled in the 70s, and sowed the seeds for its glorious present, worthy of a pilgrimage.
A pair of glasses on an art gallery floor. Art? Or prank? What about a urinal? We compare recent pranks in art museums to art that uses some of the same strategies.
We explore the recipes of artist Frida Kahlo, whose work celebrated Mexico's history, vivid colors, and it's FOOD. On the menu: 1) Chiles Stuffed with Cheese aka Chiles Rellenos 2) White Rice with Plantains 3) Nopales Salad 4) Tequila.
Jon Cozart talks to us about classical music, internet videos, Lord of the Rings, and of course, musicals. Here are Jon's five favorite works of art: 1) Spring Awakening 2) Mozart's Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 . 3) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King . 4) The "Tomorrow" soliloquy from Shakespeare's Macbeth . 5) History of Japan by Bill Wurtz
Behold the 2017 Venice Biennale. Called the "olympics of the art world," the exhibition invades historic (and tourist clogged) Venice, Italy, every two years, and has since 1895. Contemporary art abounds, with installations and exhibitions occupying the city's Giardini and Arsenale, as well as art venues throughout the city. And yes, we ate plenty of gelato and rode in a gondola.
We met Hannah Hart in her studio to talk about everything from painting to poetry -- here are Hannah's five favorite works of art: 1) Little By Little by Hannah Gelb (available here as a print! 2) The video Why Trust Is Worth It by Ze Frank. 3) Biwa Lake Tree, Study 2 by Michael Kenna. 4) Little Red Riding Hood by Cory Godbey. 5) Any poem by Mary Oliver
Visit the architectural mecca of Columbus, Indiana, to bask in the mid-century glory of Eliel and Eero Saarinen’s masterpieces and a series of new and innovative installations by renowned designers. We explore the first exhibition of Exhibit Columbus, an annual exploration of architecture, art, design, and community, and ask questions about the value of good design.
Gordon Matta-Clark (1943 - 1978) was one of the most influential artists of his generation, and was also the brainchild behind the infamous BONE MEAL in 1971 at the artist-run Food restaurant in New York City's SoHo neighborhood. He served numerous bone-intensive dishes to the guests and then returned their leftover bones to the as necklaces.
*and other things I learned about art from the internet.
When art is generated by Artificial Intelligence, what or who can we call the artist? We look to art history to consider the long collaboration between humans and technology.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Meet in the Middle' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Stakeout!' assignment
We review some of the best responses to the 'Intimate, Indispensable GIF' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Never Seen, Never Will' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Quitest Place' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Psychological Landscape' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'What, How, Where!' challenge.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Off' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Walk On It' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Under the Influence' assignment!
We review some of the best responses to the 'Imprint' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Find Your Band' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Expanded Moment' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Desktop Monument' assignment.
We review some of the best responses to the 'Make a Rug' assignment. !
Son Lux invited you to collaborate with him by responding to a piece of his music, and you all delivered in as many forms as possible.
We accepted J. Morgan Puett's art assignment and gathered some friends together to host our own Scramble Scrabble Dinner.
This week we let your responses speak for themselves and present some of the excellent submissions to The Muster. What are you fighting for?
This week we channel Drake and answer your questions from our art hotline. Keep them coming - call us at 901-602-ARTY!
This week we answer your questions from our art hotline* and talk about the legitimacy of celebrity artists, the embarrassment of being called an "artist", why we laugh at art, and more. Keep the calls coming - leave us a message at 901-602-ARTY!
This week we answer your questions from our art hotline* and talk about the distinction between art and craft (if any), art world pretension, the proliferation of images, imposter syndrome, and more. Keep the calls coming - leave us a message at 901-602-ARTY!
With 2017 comes great change. Assignments are ending, but the channel is not! Starting in March we’ll be focusing on "The Case for" videos, Art Trips, and other art and art history related topics. We're also starting an Art Assignment Work Group to keep the assignment flame alive.
Over the past 3 years, 60 artists have offered art assignments, and thousands of artworks have been made in response. Here's a brief glimpse of what we've all made together over the course of this series so far. So KEEP ASSIGNMENTING!
Subscribe for new episodes of The Art Assignment every other Thursday!
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